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ADDRESS 



ILLUSTRATIVE OP THE 



NATURE AND POWER OF THE SLAVE STATES, 



DUTIES OF THE FREE STATES; 



DELIVERED AT THE REQUEST 



INHABITANTS OF THE TOWN OF QUINCY, MASS., 



On Thursday, June 5, 1856. 



BY JOSIAH QUINCY. 



9Itfrrt antj Enlarged since ©clibcrn. 



BOSTON: 
TICK NOR AND FIELDS. 

M.DCCC.LVI. 



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ttr ttatctr 



THE PEOPLE OF THE FREE STATES, 

"WHO ARE ENTREATED TO CONSIDER THE VIEWS AND 
STATEMENTS IT PRESENTS. 



The question to be decided, at the ensuing Presidential election, is, Who 
shall henceforth rule this nation, — the Slave States, or the Free States ? 
All the aspects of our political atmosphere indicate an approaching hurri- 
cane. Whether it shall sweep tins Union from its foundations, or whether it 
shall be prosperously weathered, depends, under Heaven, on the man whom 
the people shall choose to pilot them through the coming storm. In my 
judgment, that man is John Charles Fremont. I have not, and never had, 
any connection with the party that selected him. Personally, I know him 
not ; but I have read the history of his life, and believe him to be a man as 
much marked out by Providence for the present exigency of our nation 
as Washington was for that of our American Revolution. 

He comes, from whence great men usually do come, from the mass of 
the people. Nursed in difficulties, practised in surmounting them; wise in 
council ; full of resource ; self-possessed in danger ; fearless and foremost 
in every useful enterprise ; unexceptionable in morals ; with an intellect 
elevated by nature, and cultivated in laborious fields of duty, — I trust he is 
destined to save this Union from dissolution ; to restore the Constitution to 
its original purity ; and to relieve that instrument, which Washington de- 
signed for the preservation and enlargement of freedom, from being any 
longer perverted to the multiplication of Slave States and the extension of 
slavery. 

JOSIAH QTJINCY. 

Quincy, July, 1856. 



BOSTON: PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON. 

Univ. of Mich. 
NOV 2 3 1933 



ADDRESS. 



Fellow-Townsmen, — I come, at your request, in ,the 
spirit of liberty and truth, to speak on topics worthy to be 
heard and pondered by you and every inhabitant of the 
Free States of this Union. They will relate to your liber- 
ties and duties. The former has been struck down in the 
Senate Chamber, at Washington, by slaveholders. In 
Kansas, the blood of freemen has been shed, by the pistols 
and bowie-knives of slaveholders, under circumstances of 
unparalleled violence. What place more suitable to speak 
words of boldness concerning the obligations of freemen, 
or with more hope of effect, than in the north precinct of 
the old town of Braintree, now Quincy, where those devoted 
assertors of liberty, John Adams, John Hancock, Josiah 
Quincy, jun., and John Quincy Adams, were educated, and 
passed their youth, and where the graves of three of them 
are within the hearing of my voice? 

In early life, from 1805 to 1813, I served as Representa- 
tive in the Congress of the United States from the town of 
Boston. I was an active member of the Federal party 
formed by Washington, and have never belonged to any 
other. Though sympathizing in feeling with Free Soilers 
and Abolitionists, I have never concurred in the measures 



of either. My heart has been always much more affected 
by the slavery to which the Free States have been subjected, 
than with that of the negro. Placed successively, since 
1820, in the offices of Judge of the Municipal Court, of 
Mayor of Boston, and of President of Harvard College, I 
have abstained from all connection with politics for thirty- 
four pears, except by voting; and now I come, at your 
request, to offer views and opinions on the present crisis of 
public affairs, derived from the light of history, and from the 
counsels and advice of Washington. 

The blow on the head of Sumner was not intended for 
him alone. It was struck at Liberty herself, in one of her 
most sacred temples. It was a public notice and declara- 
tion, to every man in the Free States, that liberty of speech 
no longer existed in Congress for him or for his Representa- 
tive ; that whoever, coming from the Free States, dare to 
utter a word in opposition to the views, or in derogation of 
the power, of slaveholders, will speak at the peril of life. 
There is nothing new in this system of intimidation. 
Fifty years ago, it was an approved practice of slaveholders. 
In that day, men from the Free States, who were open 
opponents to the administration, often carried pistols in 
self-defence. Others, urged by their friends to do it, declined ; 
being unwilling, under any circumstances, to have the life 
of a fellow-being on their consciences. The only difference 
between our times and the past is this : heretofore they 
brandished the bludgeon ; now they have brought it down. 
Formerly the bowie-knife was only seen in its sheath, or 
half-drawn by way of terror; now it is seen glistening 
in their hands, or steeped in the blood of freemen in 
Kansas. 

This state of things naturally leads thoughtful minds to 
reflect on the actual condition of this Union, — of Slave 
States politically united with Free States. Those living 
under the former are in a perpetual consciousness of danger. 



It cannot be otherwise, however they may attempt to con- 
ceal it from others and from themselves. It is impossible 
that three hundred thousand ivhites, who are the masters, 
surrounded by three mil/ion of blacks, who are slaves, can 
live otherwise than under a never-ceasing sense of danger. 
The mode of maintaining the subjection of their slaves is, 
therefore, the constant object of their thoughts. 

In the Free States, on the contrary, from twenty to 
twenty-five millions of whites exist, with proportionate 
superiority in wealth, activity, and physical power, without 
any care of or danger from slaves. 

This difference of condition in the two species of States 
produces unavoidably, in slaveholders, a continual sense of 
danger from within, and of prospective danger from without. 
The immense superiority of physical power in the Free 
States, combined with a knowledge of their own inherent 
weakness, creates in their minds a belief that their own 
political existence, and that of their slaves, depends upon 
obtaining and keeping the control of the Free States. Na- 
ture, in the human as in every other animal, compensates 
positive or comparative weakness by some quality which is 
equivalent for defence. In the case of the Slave States, 
she supplies the want of strength by art. The operation of 
this, in effecting their great object of obtaining and keeping 
the control of the Free States, it is my purpose briefly to 
illustrate from the history of this Union. 

The art by which, for more than fifty years, the Slave 
States have subjugated the Free States, and vested in their 
own hands all the powers of the Union, they call policy. 
Its proper name is cunning; that "left-handed wisdom," as 
Lord Bacon calls it, which the Devil practised in the garden 
of Eden, — " divide and conquer." By this, they established 
the seat of national government in a slave country, and 
thus surrounded Congress with an atmosphere of slavery, 
and subjected the Free States to its influences, in the place 



6 



where the councils of the nation are held, and where the 
whole public sentiment is hostile to the principles of the 
Free States ; and where, in case of collisions resulting in 
actions at law and indictments, slaveholders are judges, 
jurors, and executioners. This location of the seat of govern- 
ment has been one of the most potent causes of that domi- 
nion over the nation which they have acquired. 

Again : by cunning, they inserted Louisiana into the Union, 
not only without the concurrence of the Free States, but 
without so much as asking it, — a measure which has been 
the Pandora's box of all our evils. 

Another of their arts is arrogance, or an insolent assump- 
tion of superiority. This, though a result of their condition 
as masters of slaves, is of great power. " Like boldness,* it is 
the child of ignoranc&and vanity ; yet it fascinates, and binds, 
hand and foot, those that are shallow in judgment or weak 
in courage, and prevaileth even with wise men at weak times. 
It hath done wonders in popular States." In Slave States, 
slaveholders are sovereigns, and deem themselves entitled 
to govern everywhere. In them, with few inconsiderable 
exceptions, they are proprietors of all the lands ; which few 
persons can afford to hold, except owners of slaves. As the 
rate of wages is regulated by the expense of supporting 
slaves, it is, of course, the least possible. Of consequence, 
slaves are the successful rivals of the white poor ; being more 
obedient, and the expense of supporting them being less. 
Thus the white poor, in the Slave States, are reduced to a 
state of extreme degradation ; in some respects, lower than 
the negro. They cannot dig ; for field-labor to a white per- 
son is there a disgrace. To beg, they are ashamed ; and 
they have no master to whom they can look for support. 
Having no land, they have no political power : the value of 
their labor is below that of the slave ; and their actual condi- 
tion comparatively that of extreme wretchedness. One-half 

* Lord Bacon's Essay on Boldness. 



of the white population of the Slave States are said to be in 
that condition.* In the vocabulary of slaveholders, liberty 
means only that planters should be independent, and have 
no superiors. 

Educated under circumstances which make pride, and 
exercise of power, the chief elements of their character, they 
come to Congress with the arrogant spirit of aristocratic 
despots ; looking down on the Representatives of the Free 
States as an inferior class ; jealous, fearful, and hating all 
talents which they cannot command ; courting, coaxing, 
fawning on all who will become their tools, so long as they 
are obedient, — when their servility is no longer useful, 
throwing them away with contempt. The different states 
of society expand this arrogance. It is well known, that, 
in the Free States, there is no honor in fighting a duel; 
that, in most of them, to give or accept a challenge would 
put an end to a man's hope of political advancement. It 
is also well known that the public sentiment is altogether 
the reverse in the Slave States. In these, to fight a duel is 
an evidence of gallantry. To kill a man in a duel is a glory, 
not a disgrace. Life itself depreciates, where killing a 
slave is often venial. For shooting a schoolmaster through 
the brain for whipping a refractory boy, juries acquit. 
According to the standard by which distributive justice 
is dispensed in a slaveholder's court in the city of Wash- 
ington, three hundred dollars is an ample retribution 



* Since this address was in the press, a citizen of Virginia has been compelled 
to leave the State, having had his life threatened -for uttering the language of Wash- 
ington in respect of slavery. His statements corroborate those contained in this 
address relative to the depressed state of the laboring white men in Slave States. 
There are now probably thousands of noble-spirited slaveholders in those States, who 
are true to the character, and partake of the spirit and virtues, of Washington, 
who dare not express their coincidence, through fear of the violence of those who 
at present possess the sovereignty in them. It will be a disgrace to the Free 
States, if they do not, at the ensuing election, come to their relief, and put out of 
power in the councils of the nation this degenerate class of slaveholders. — See the 
statements of Mr. Underwood, of Virginia, in the "New-York Herald," and other 
papers of the day. 



8 

for an assault, endangering life and future usefulness, made 
by a member of the House of Representatives upon a Sena- 
tor sitting in his seat in the Senate Chamber of the United 
States ! 

This different state of sentiment and opinion, in the dif- 
ferent sections of the United States, brings into action, in 
Congress, that arrogance, which, as has been stated, is an 
inseparable element of a slaveholder's character. The dis- 
position to insult, and endeavor to browbeat, whoever from 
the Free States dares to cross his path, is excited into con- 
stant action, not only from the belief, that, towards mem- 
bers from the Free States, they can do it with impunity, 
but from the fact that such bullying is a sure path to popu- 
larity among their own constituents. Their boastful chivalric 
bravery is, in truth, only disguised cowardice. The slave- 
holder knows, that, if he does not display an alacrity to 
fight, he is disgraced at home, and can never hope to be 
sent to Congress afterwards ; so that his vaunted courage 
is nothing but fear of being disgraced among his own 
constituents, and losing his political standing by showing 
what they call " the white feather." 

To a man from the Free States, who gives or accepts a 
challenge, no term of reproach is too severe. By such 
act, he descends from the moral and religious elevation, on 
which the state of civilization in the Free States has placed 
him, to the semi-barbarous level of chivalric morality. 
For his fictitious courage, he is not supported in his trem- 
bling, as is the other, by fear of the corrupt opinion of his 
constituents. He fights with the knowledge that the act 
disgraces him at home ; that, if he kills his antagonist, he 
is there ruined for life ; that, if he is killed himself, he dieth 
as the fool dieth, — lying down, not in a bed of honor, but 
of disgrace. And deservedly; for he abandons the pure 
civilized code of true honor in which he has been educated, 
and heartlessly transfers his allegiance to a code of false 



honor, invented by barbarous chieftains in the middle ages 
to support their projects of plunder and tyranny, and natu- 
rally adopted in this more civilized age, by aristocratic 
dealers in slaves, to support the system by which they live, 
and which they hope to perpetuate by making it universal.* 
Several years ago, John Quincy Adams said to me, 
" Insult, bullying, and threat characterize the slaveholders 
in Congress ; talk, timidity, and submission, the Representa- 
tives from the Free States." What Adams calls " timidity" 
is in them, for the reasons above stated, for the most part 
unavoidable. Men educated under moral, religious, and 
refined influences, meet in Congress a class of men, of 
which, at home, they know nothing, and would not will- 
ingly meet anywhere ; with many of whom, every second 
word is an oath ; and who are always ready, with a 
pistol, or offer of a duel, to support what they call their 
arguments. This class was always in Congress. Formerly 
they were only a part of the slaveholders in the two branches ; 
now they probably constitute a majority. These men are 
always ready to insult, threaten, and bully any member 
of Congress from the Free States who dares to retort their 
obloquy; which, if he does, a duel is thrust into his face, as 
was recently into Mr. Wilson's, and which he so honorably 
repelled, in the temper and demeanor of a mild, firm spirit 
of civilized chivalry. Although the natural tendency of 
slavery is to deteriorate the morals and weaken the self- 
control of the masters of slaves, yet there always have been 
men raised in the Slave States with an innate purity capa- 
ble of repelling the influences of their condition, and endowed 
by nature with an herculean strength to strangle in man- 



* These animadversions I have been compelled to make out of regard to truth 
and duty. No man can regret more than myself their apparent application to the 
course pursued by Mr. Burlingame, which, in every other respect, was wise, lofty, 
and honorable. His mistakes were, first, in admitting, by his act, that there could 
be, by any possibility, honor connected with duelling; and, second, in descending 
to the level of such an antagonist. 

2 



10 



hood the serpents in whose coils their childhood and youth 
have been reared. 

Fifty years ago, there were two classes of slaveholders in 
Congress; the one, generous in spirit, polished in man- 
ners, true to the principles of liberty and the Constitution, 
uniting heart and hand with the Representatives from the 
Free States in objects and policy ; of the same type and 
character as George Washington, John Marshall, William 
Pinckney, Henry W. Dessaussure, John Stanley, Nicholas 
Vandyke, Philip Stuart, Alexander Contee Hanson, and a 
host of others, too numerous to be recapitulated, in principle 
and views coincident with the Constitution, destitute of all 
desire to establish the supremacy of slaveholders. They 
spoke of slavery, like Patrick Henry, as " a curse," which 
blighted the prospects and weakened the strength of the 
Slave States, — with him deplored the necessity of holding 
men in bondage, declaring their belief that the time would 
come when " an opportunity will be afforded to abolish this 
lamentable evil;" like Governor Randolph, they regarded 
themselves " oppressed by slavery, and treated with disdain 
the idea that the Slave States could stand by themselves ; " * 
with Judge Tucker, of Virginia,! the y thought, as he de- 
clared, that posterity " would execrate the memory of those 
ancestors, ivho, having- the power to avert the evil of slavery, 
have, like their first parents, entailed a curse on all future 
generations." 

These men, far from threatening to go out of the Union, 
regarded and spoke of it as a main hope of dependence 
against their own slaves. They encouraged and supported 
every man from the Free States who met the violence of 
the insolent class with appropriate spirit. They saw and 
lamented the character and conduct of the lower and baser 
slaveholders, who, coarse in language, overbearing in man- 

* See Debates in the Convention of Virginia, 
t See Tucker's Commentaries on Blackstone. 



11 



ner, caring nothing for the principles of liberty and the Con- 
stitution, came to Congress for the purpose of getting olfice 
or place, and, to that end, were as subservient to every nod 
of the administration as any slave to that of his master. 

The nobler class of slaveholders foresaw and foretold 
that the effect of the language and course of conduct of this 
violent class would gradually wear away the affections of 
the Free States, and lead to a dissolution of the Union. 
These higher spirits could not submit to use the arts and 
language to obtain power to which the baser sort conde- 
scended, and, of consequence, lost their influence in their 
respective districts ; to which these political filibusters suc- 
ceeded, and came to Washington, some to follow and some 
to direct the course of the administration, by whom they 
were rewarded according to their talents, their violence, or 
their subserviency. 

In 1810, John Randolph, in whose mind Virginia in- 
cluded all the South, said to me, " Virginia is no longer 
what it once was. The spirit of the old planters is departed 
or gradually wearing away : we are overrun by time-servers 
office-hunters, and political blacklegs." In a letter to me, 
dated " Richmond, 22d March, 1814," after giving a melan- 
choly description of a visit he had just made to " the seat of 
his ancestors, in the maternal line, at the confluence of the 
James and Appomattox Rivers," he adds, "The curse of sla- 
very, however, an evil daily magnifying, great as it already is, 
imbitters many a moment of the Virginian landholder, who is 
not duller than the clod under his feet" And, recurring to the 
then-existing state of Virginia, in the same letter he adds, 
" In your country, the state of society is not changed, the 
whole fabric uprooted, as it is with us. Here the rich vul- 
gar are everybody and every thing. You can almost smell 
the rum and cheese and loaf and lump-sugar out of which 
their mushroom fortunes have sprung, much more offensive 
to my nostrils than ' muck and merinos.' These fellows 



12 

will never 'get out of Black Friars;' and they make up in 
ostentation for other deficiencies of which they are always 
conscious, and sometimes ashamed." 

Slaveholders have been for fifty years, a few only ex- 
cepted, the political masters of these States. Rampant with 
long-possessed authority, in the natural spirit of the class, 
they have now put on the lash, and are getting ready for 
use their fetters and manacles. 

Let the Free States understand that the crisis has come. 
Their own fate and that of their posterity depend upon the 
fact, whether, in this crisis, they are true or false to them- 
selves. The extension of slavery has been, from the days 
of Jefferson, the undeviating pursuit of the slaveholders. 
Hitherto by cunning, intrigue, and corruption, and now to 
plant it for ever among the South-western States, compro- 
mises have been violated, the ballot-boxes broken, the votes 
of freemen destroyed, and free citizens massacred and their 
houses plundered by mobs, encouraged by a slaveholder's 
administration, and supported by the military arm of the 
United States. If this tissue of events do not rouse the 
Free States to united and concentrated action, nothing will. 
Their destinies are fixed. They are doomed slaves. Their 
liberties are gone, their Constitution gone. Nothing is 
left to them but to yoke in with the negro, and take the 
lash, submissively, at the caprice of their masters. 

But everybody asks, " What is to be done to throw off 
this slaveholders' yoke ? " The first step is to have a spirit 
and will to be free. If there is a will, the spirit of freemen 
will soon find a way. It is not the slaveholders' strength, 
but your folly. It is because they wake, and you sleep ; 
because they unite, and you divide ; because they hold in 
their hands the means of corruption, and half of you per- 
haps are willing to be corrupted. This is bold language, it 
will be said. Boldness is one of the privileges of old age. 
When can a man have a right to be bold, if it be not when 



13 



he is conscious of being prompted by truth and duty alone, 
and when a long life is behind him, and nothing before him 
but a daily-expected summons to the highest and most 
solemn of all tribunals ? 

I now proceed to trace the political power of these slave- 
holders from its origin, and show the present actual condition 
of the Constitution, as it is called, of the United States. 

It has been already stated that the cunning- of the slave- 
holders was early developed in two measures, — the esta- 
blishment of the seat of government in a slave country, 
and the admission of Louisiana into the Union without the 
assent of the people of the United States. To the effects 
of the first, I have already alluded. Those of the second 
were known and acknowledged by the leaders of the coun- 
cils of the nation, at the time of its adoption, to be a gross 
violation of the Constitution of the United Stales; that it was 
a power the people of the States never granted to Congress. 
That such was the fact, no man at this day does or can 
deny, except those who, for party purposes or personal ends, 
are ready to say or do any thing. 

The admission of Louisiana into the Union, without 
asking or having the consent of the people of the States 
or of the States themselves, was undeniably a stupendous 
usurpation. 

Now, there is no advice more distinctly given, no warning 
more solemnly uttered, by Washington, in that " Farewell 
Address to the People of the United States " which is called 
his legacy, than this, — "Let there be no change by 
usurpation." That the admission of Louisiana into the 
Union, without the assent of the Free States, was a gross 
violation of the Constitution, and a stupendous usurpation of 
powers not given them by the Constitution, there can be- 
no possible question. That it was such, was known and 
declared by Thomas Jefferson himself, then President of the 
United States. In a letter to a Mr. Breckenridge, dated 



14 



August the 12th, 1803, stating the course to be pursued for 
the admission of Louisiana, he unreservedly writes: " Con- 
gress must appeal to the nation for an additional article to the 
Constitution, approving and confirming an act which they 
must previously pass for its admission. . . . The Constitution 
has made no provision for our holding foreign territory, still 
less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union" * And 
in a letter to "Wilson Cary Nicholas, dated " Monticello, 
Sept. 7, 1803," Mr. Jefferson enters into a laborious 
argument to show that "it was not the intention of the 
Constitution to permit Congress to admit into the Union 
new States in Territories not included within the limits of 
the old United States;" intimates that doing so "would 
make the Constitution blank paper by construction; adding, 
that, "if the powers granted are considered ' boundless,'' then 
ive have no Constitution ; " and concludes by declaring it " im- 
portant, in the present case, to set an example against broad 
construction, by appealing to the people for new powers." f 
It will throw light on the path of the duty of the Free 

* See Jefferson's Works, vol. iii. p. 512. 

f The language of Mr. Jefferson is as follows : " I am aware of the force of the ob- 
servations you make on the power given by the Constitution to Congress to admit 
new States into the Union, without restraining the subject to the territory then con- 
stituting the United States. But when I consider that the limits of the United 
States are precisely fixed by. the treaty of 1783, that the Constitution expressly 
declares itself to be made for the United States, I cannot help believing the inten- 
tion was not to permit Congress to admit into the Union new States which should 
be formed out of the territory for which, and under whose authority alone, 
they were then acting. I do not believe it was meant that they might receive Eng- 
land, Ireland, Holland, &c, into it; which would be the case, on your construction. 
When an instrument admits two constructions, — the one safe, the other dangerous; 
the one precise, the other indefinite, — I prefer that which is^safe and precise. I had 
rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where it is found necessary, 
than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our 
peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let vs not make it 
a blank paper by construction. I say the same as to the opinion of those who con- 
sider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no 
Constitution." 

" I confess, then, I think it important, in the present case, to set an example 
against broad construction, by appealing for new power to the people." — Jeffer- 
son's Letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas, dated Monticello, Sept. 7, 1803. See Jeffer- 
son's Writings, edition 1830, vol. iv. pp. 2, 3. 



15 



States to show how this stupendous usurpation \v;is frrsl 
effected, and for them to learn the workings of thai warning, 
which, as has been stated, is a main element of the power 
of slaveholders. 

"When the leading slaveholders in Congress found that 
their great head, President Jefferson, had taken ground on 
a strict construction of the Constitution, they at once per- 
ceived, that, if his principles were adopted, there would be 
an end of their great project of enlarging the sphere of 
slavery by admitting into the Union territories beyond the 
old limits of the United States. They saw at once, that, if 
the question of admission should be referred to the people 
or the States for decision, the consequences would be fore- 
seen by them; it would be negatived, or the admission 
clogged with such conditions or limitations as would not only 
defeat, in this case, the great project of the slaveholders, but, 
what was worse, preclude the enlargement of their power, 
by inserting new Slave States in territories, obtained by 
acquisition or conquest, lying beyond Louisiana itself. 
For the precedent once established, that Congress had no 
power in such cases, but that application to the people of 
the States must first be made, the slaveholders would be de- 
feated in their project for ever. Under these apprehensions, 
they set themselves at work to satisfy Mr. Jefferson that the 
clause in the Constitution relative to the admission of new 
States was, without restriction, to the territory of the United 
States. Thus these slaveholders, who at every period of 
our history, before and since, have made strict construction 
their clamor and their policy, now saw nothing exceptionable 
in advocating the broadest of all possible constructions, be- 
cause they saw, in its consequences, enlargement of the slave- 
holders' power. Jefferson declared that he was not con- 
vinced by their arguments, but " that he was willing' to let 
the bill pass," intimating that he would not interpose his 
veto; although, at the same time, he avowed it " would make 



16 



the Constitution a blank paper by construction." Seeing the 
great benefit which would result to the slaveholders' power, 
" whatever Congress should think it necessary to do" he was 
ready to sanction. " If aur friends should think differently 
from me, I shall acquiesce with satisfaction."* He did not 
pretend that his conscience was convinced, or his sense of 
duty altered ; but, seeing the benefit which would redound 
to the slaveholders, he would not obstruct the passage of 
the bill. 

The course he recommended his partisans to pursue, in 
order to conceal his opinion from the people of the Free 
States, and keep them deceived and ignorant of the conse- 
quences of the act, — which, in opposition to his declared 
opinion that it would make a nullity of the Constitution, 
he consented to let pass, — is characteristic of the slave- 
holders' cunning. Finding that, by influence, by hopes of 
place, or by office, they could command votes enough from 
the Free States to effect their purposes, Jefferson thus con- 
fidentially develops his policy. In a letter to Levi Lincoln, 
dated « Monticello, Aug. 30, 1803," he thus wrote: " Con- 
cerning the admission of Louisiana, the less that is said 

ABOUT ANY CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTY THE BETTER." f 

And in his letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas, above cited, 
writing on the same subject, he says, '■'■Whatever Congress 
shall think it necessary to do should be done with as 

LITTLE DEBATE AS POSSIBLE, PARTICULARLY AS FAR AS RE- 
SPECTS the constitutional difficulty." Here we see 
developed the arts of the slaveholder, and the source of that 
insolence and browbeating by which in that day every 
man was assailed who exposed the nature of the bill for 
admitting Louisiana, and dared to state the consequences, 
resulting from its passage, in the very words and on the 

* See Jefferson's Letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas, dated Monticello, Sept. 7, 1803. 
t Jefferson's Writings, vol. iv. p. 1. 



17 

very principles which his partisans knew were held and 
maintained by Jefferson himself. 

The passage of the Louisiana Admission Bill was effected 
by the arts which slaveholders well know how to select and 
apply. Sops were given to the congressional watch-dogs 
of the Free States. To some, promises were made, l>y 
way of opiates ; and those whom they could neither pay 
nor drug were publicly treated with insolence and scorn. 
Threats, duels, and violence were at that day, as now, 
modes approved by them to deter men from awakening the 
Free States to a sense of their danger. From the moment 
that act was passed, they saw that the Free States were 
shorn of their strength ; that they had obtained space to 
multiply Slave States at their will; and Mr. Jefferson 
had confidentially told them, that, from that moment, the 
"Constitution of the United Slates zvas blank paper;" but 
more correctly, there was " no longer any Constitution" 

The slaveholders from that day saw they had the Free 
States in their power; that they were masters, and the 
Free States slaves; and have acted accordingly. From 
the passage of the Louisiana Bill until this day, their policy 
has been directed to a single object, with almost uninter- 
rupted success. That object was to exclude the Free States 
from any share of power, except in subserviency to their 
views; and they have undeniably, during all the subsequent 
period of our history (the administration of John Quincy 
Adams only excepted), placed in the chair of state either 
slaveholders, or men from the Free States, who, for sake of 
power, consented to be their tools, — " Northern men with 
Southern principles;" in other words, men who, for the 
sake of power or pay, were willing to do any work they 
would set them upon. 

In the times of non-intercourse and embargo, I had fre- 
quent intercourse with John Randolph, and for many years 
a correspondence with him. During the extreme pressure 

3 



18 



of those measures upon the commerce of the Northern 
States, I said to him, " Mr. Randolph, these measures are 
absolutely insupportable. You Southern men will, at this 
rate, put an end to parties in the Northern States, and we 
shall come down upon the South in one united phalanx." 
I shall never forget the half-triumph and half-sneer with 
which he replied, "You are mistaken, sir; you are mis- 
taken, sir. The South are as sure of your democracy 

AS THEY ARE OF THEIR OWN NEGROES." 

Let any man examine the history of the United States, 
from the reign of Thomas Jefferson to that of Franklin 
Pierce, and he will find, that, when the slaveholders have 
any particularly odious and obnoxious work to do, they 
never fail to employ the leaders of the democracy of the 
Free States. This fact speaks volumes to the Free States. 
In all estimates of their future duties, it should never be 
forgotten, that every act by which their interests have been 
sacrificed, and the power of slaveholders increased, has 
been effected by the treachery of members of the Free 
States. 

That the people of the Free States might, on the admis- 
sion of Louisiana into the Union without their consent, 
have declared the Constitution so violated as to justify 
them in dissolving the Union, no one, who takes the author- 
ity and principles of Jefferson as his guide, can doubt. If 
the people of the Free States had then foreseen one-tenth 
of the consequences which they realize at this day, can it 
be questioned but they would have liberated themselves 
from that prospective thraldom to which they, in conse- 
quence, are now subjected ? Could they have foreseen 
that the effect of that bill would have been to invest the 
comparatively insignificant body of slaveholders with the 
power of multiplying Slave States at their will in these 
new-acquired territories, and also into others, admitted by 
virtue of this precedent; that by these means that in- 



19 



famous and doubly deceptive principle, whereby proper///, 
under the mask of persons, is admitted to a representation, 
nominally of persons in bondage, in fact a representation 
of their masters, the oppressor representing the oppressed ; 
— could it have been, in that day, possibly anticipated 
that the result of that admission would have been to mul- 
tiply and extend the power of that false and iniquitous 
principle to an indefinite degree, not only into the territories 
then acquired, but into other lands, invaded and conquered 
for no other reason than enlarging the sphere of that abo- 
minable principle, in consequences of which all the propor- 
tions of representation between the Slave and Free States, 
established by the Constitution, have been annihilated; — 
can it be questioned, that the Free States would have at 
once cut adrift from these slaveholders, or, more wisely, have 
intimated a sense of their comparative insignificance, by 
rejecting the Louisiana Bill, or demanding admission of 
that State upon such terms as would have secured for ever 
to the Free States that proportion of power which the 
original provision of the Constitution had guaranteed to 
them? 

While the Louisiana Bill was in its passage, it was said 
openly, by the author of this address, in Congress, " If this 
bill passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved ; the 
States which compose it are free from their moral obligations ; 
and that as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty 
of some, to prepare definitely for a separation, — peaceably if 
they can, violently if they mustP The results and duties 
then stated are as true and incumbent at the present as 
they were at that day. The only difference is, that what 
was then but foreseen is now realized ; what was then 
prophecy is now history. 

It is, then, manifest to the Free States, that a mon- 
strous usurpation has been effected, and is intended to be 
enlarged and perpetuated. 



20 



The warning voice of Washington, in this state of things, 
is, " Let there be no change by usurpation." He adds, 
" Change by usurpation is the customary weapon by 
which free governments are destroyed." Again : "Wash- 
ington advises, " Resist with care the spirit of inno- 
vation UPON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION. The 
SPIRIT OF ENCROACHMENT TENDS TO CONSOLIDATE THE POW- 
ERS OF ALL DEPARTMENTS IN ONE, AND THUS TO CREATE A REAL 
DESPOTISM." 

Let the inhabitants of the Free States look into history, 
and see whether the spirit of encroachment has not already 
consolidated in the hands of slaveholders the powers of all 
the departments. Is there an officer of State, from the 
President downwards, who has not been selected from 
the knowledge or belief of his adhesion to the slaveholders' 
supremacy ? The tenants of all the offices, which give to 
their possessors daily bread, are of course holden to servi- 
tude to the slaveholders by the necessities of existence. 
Inquire, and see, whether, since the days of Andrew 
Jackson, the selections of the judges of your courts of 
judicature, even of the highest, have not been made in 
consequence of hard political services rendered, or from 
principles previously avowed of the nature of a declaration 
of subserviency to the slaveholders' power. 

The Free States are then, undeniably, at this day, in 
that very state of things in which the warning voice of 
Washington declared " resistance to be their duty." 
During more than forty years, the spirit of a continued 
series of. encroachments has established over them the worst 
of all possible despotisms, — that of slaveholders. The 
manner in which this duty of resistance, so distinctly 
advised by Washington, is to be performed in the spirit 
which he advised, and which his life exemplified, is at this 
time the subject of earnest and solicitous consideration by 
the people of the Free States. It will be my endeavor to 



21 



throw some light on their duties, and on the course to be 
pursued in performing them. 

The duties of the Free States result, first, from their 
political condition. Of this, in respect of the Constitution 
of 1789, there can be no doubt. In 1811, members from 
the Free States declared in Congress that the passage 
of the bill admitting Louisiana rendered the Constitution of 
the United States a blank letter ; or, rather, that thereafter 
there was no Constitution. In that day, Thomas Jefferson, 
the great leader of the so-called " Democratic Republi- 
cans," declared the same thing. 

The continuance in union at that time was simply a 
question of expediency, and has so continued until the pre- 
sent. To the Free States, their continuance in this connec- 
tion has ever since been, and is now, not the result of moral 
obligation, but solely of expediency. This condition of 
things is the first element from which the Free States are 
bound to deduce their duties. 

The next is the character of the people of the Slave 
States, and the utter incompatibility of that character with 
the liberties of the Free States, so long as the controlling- 
powers of government are permitted to remain in the hands of 
slaveholders. The character of slaveholders results from 
their ownership of slaves. The very basis of their political 
condition is not liberty, but slavery. The equality which 
liberty establishes among freemen and Free States they 
neither appreciate nor can understand. With them, equality 
means, and can mean, only equality among masters of 
slaves. To live by the labor of fellow-beings is their 
notion of happiness. To live idly and luxuriously them- 
selves, to govern others, and appropriate to their own use 
the fruits of other persons' industry, is the substance of 
their felicity. Never to do any thing for themselves which 
they can make others do for them, is the principle of their 
actions. Labor is with them only another name for servi- 



22 



tude. Those who labor are held in the same contempt, 
and thought entitled to the same treatment, as are their 
own negroes. Many years ago, John Quincy Adams re- 
lated a conversation which he once had with John C. 
Calhoun on this very subject. Calhoun said to him, that 
the broad principles of liberty which Mr. Adams had been 
advocating were just and noble; but that in the Southern 
country, whenever they were mentioned, they were always 
understood as applying only to white men. Domestic labor 
was confined to the blacks; and such was the prejudice, 
that if he, who was the most popular man in his district, 
were to keep a white servant in his house, his character 
and reputation would be irretrievably ruined. Mr. Adams 
said, that this confounding servitude and labor was one of 
the bad effects of slavery. Mr. Calhoun thought it was 
attended with many excellent consequences. It did not 
apply to all sorts of labor, — not, for example, to holding 
the plough; he and his father had often done that: nor did 
it apply to manufacturing and mechanical labor ; these were 
not degrading: but to dig, to hoe, to do work either in the 
field, the house, or the stable, — these were menial labors, 
the proper work of slaves. No white man could descend to 
that. Calhoun thought that it was the best guarantee of 
equality among the whites. It produced among them an 
unvarying level. It did not admit of inequalities among 
whites. Mr. Adams replied, that it was all perverted sen- 
timent, mistaking labor for slavery, and dominion for free- 
dom. And, in stating it in conversation, Adams remarked, 
that this discussion with Calhoun had betrayed to him the 
secret of their souls. In the abstract, they admit slavery to 
be an evil ; but, when probed to the quick, they show, at 
the bottom of their souls, pride and vainglory in their very 
condition of masterdom. They fancy themselves more 
generous and noble-hearted than the plain freemen that 
labor for subsistence. They look down on the simplicity 



23 



of New-England manners, because they have no habits of 
overbearing like theirs, and cannot treat negroes like dogs. 
It is among the evils of slavery, that it taints the very 
sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates 
of virtue and vice; for what can be more false and heart- 
less than this doctrine, which makes the first and holiest 
rights of humanity depend on the color of the skin? It 
perverts human reason, and reduces man, endowed with 
logical powers, to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by 
the Christian religion ; that slaves are happy and contented 
in their condition ; that there are, between master and slave, 
mutual ties of attachment and affection ; that the virtues of 
the master are refined and exalted by the degradation 
of the slave ; while, at the same time, they vent execrations on 
the slave-trade, curse Great Britain for having given them 
slaves, burn at the stake negroes convicted of crimes, for the 
terror of the example, and writhe in agonies of fear at 
the very mention of human rights as applicable to people 
of color. " The impression produced on my mind," Mr. 
Adams added, " by this discussion, is, that the bargain 
between freedom and slavery, contained in the Constitution 
of the United States, is morally and politically vicious, 
inconsistent with the principles on which alone our revolu- 
tion can be justified, cruel and oppressive by riveting the 
chains of slavery, by pledging the faith of freedom to 
maintain and perpetuate the tyranny of the master, and 
grossly unequal and impolitic by admitting that slaves are 
at once enemies to be kept in subjection, property to be 
secured and returned to their owners, and persons not to 
be represented themselves, but for whom their masters are 
privileged with nearly a double share of representation. 
The consequence has been, that this slave representation 
has governed the Union. Benjamin's portion above his 
brethren has ravined as a wolf. In the morning he has 
devoured the prey, and in the evening has divided the spoil. 



24 



It would be no difficult matter to prove, by recurring to the 
history of the Union under this Constitution, that almost 
every thing which has contributed to the honor and welfare 
of this nation has been accomplished in despite of them, 
or forced upon them ; and every thing unpropitious and 
dishonorable may be traced to them." 

After reading and weighing the opinions of this great 
and good man, and reflecting on the facts which he states, 
can any one doubt the incompatibility of the essential 
character of slaveholders with the government and man- 
agement of the affairs of freemen ? Can they who regard 
labor as servitude be the fit guardians of the interests of 
men who regard labor as their honor, and its successful ex- 
ercise their duty and glory ? 

Mr. Jefferson, in his " Notes on Virginia," graphically exhi- 
bits " the unhappy influence on the manners of slaveholders 
by the existence of slavery. The whole commerce between 
master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most bois- 
terous passions ; the most unremitting despotism on the one 
part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children 
see this, learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. 
This quality is the germ of all education in him. From 
his cradle to his grave, he is learning to do what he sees 
others do. If a parent could find no motive, either in his 
philanthropy or self-love, for restraining the intemperance of 
passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one 
that his child is present; but, in general, it is not sufficient. 
The parent storms; the child looks on, catches the lineaments 
of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller 
slaves, gives a loose to his worst passions, and, thus nursed, 
educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be 
stamped with odious peculiarities. The man, then, must be a 
prodigy who can retain his morals and manners undepraved 
by such circumstances." 

After such testimony, given by the greatest and most 



25 



idolized of all slaveholders, as to the qualities which are 
the necessary results of their education from childhood of 
his whole class, will the people of the Free States trust 
them longer with the care of their Union? Is it wonderful, 
that in every year, from the days of Thomas Jefferson to 
the present, such men as Brooks, Keitt, and Butler should, 
in one uninterrupted succession, have appeared on the floor 
of Congress? 

"Without enumerating other qualities inherent in slave- 
holders, and incompatible with the liberties of the Free 
States, I proceed to examine the nature of that power 
which slaveholders have wielded over this Union for half a 
century. 

How is it that a body of slaveholders, which at no pre- 
vious period have exceeded in numbers more than three 
hundred thousand, and which at this day do not equal three 
hundred and fifty thousand, — of which certainly not more 
than one thousand have any weight or voice in devising and 
conducting their policy, — have been able, for more than fifty 
years, to lead from eighteen to twenty millions of men 
whithersoever they will, and to establish over them a sove- 
reignty which is yet to be proved not immovable and per- 
manent? 

This power of slaveholders has its origin, — as has been 
already intimated, — first, from a concentration of interests 
and fears in the body of slaveholders ; second, from a total 
want of concentration of interests among the people of the 
Free States, combined with an entire want of all apprehen- 
sions of danger, owing to their unquestionable superiority in 
physical power. This, then, is the exact state of things 
in this Union. There are in it about three hundred thou- 
sand slaveholders, whose interests and fears are identical. 
There are in it at least from twenty to twenty-four millions 
of men in the Free States, who have no special identity of 
interest, and absolutely no fear whatsoever. This state 

4 



26 



of thing, is one of the sources from whieh the power slave- 
holders w.eld emanates. Their slaves are at once their 
pr.de , a„d their weakness, the objects of their dependence 
and their fears. In 1811, John Randolph, who, with all his 
eccentr.c.t.es, was the truest to his class and the most hon- 
"able of all slaveholders, and who saw with contempt the 
bluster.ng bravadoes of many of his brethren, thus exposed 
theu- weakness and their terrors on the floor of Congress- 
While you are talking of taking Canada, some of us are 
shuddering for our own safety at home. I speak from facts, 
when I say that the night-bell never tolls for fire, in Rich- 
mond, that the mother does not hug her infant more closely 
to her bosom. I have been witness of some alarms in the 
capital of Virginia." * 

How greatly the terror of their slave population has in- 
creased since the days of John Randolph, may be conceived 
from the following facts. Then the slave population but 
litfle exceeded one million; now it greatly exceeds three mil- 

From the identity of the interests and fears of slave- 
holders results identity in policy of the members of the 
whole class Their studies, thoughts, counsels, are absorbed 
and directed to two objects, _ how to keep their negroes in 
subjection ; and, as subsidiary to this end, how to keep the 
control „f h F State , % ^ ^^ P 

the fears of then- slaves the arm of the Union, ever in readi- 
ness to keep them in subjection, and also relieve themselves 
ton. he apprehension that that arm might be extended for 
the relief of their slaves. 

The different state of society in the Slave and Free 
States of Uself, gives the former advantages over the latter, 
for obtam.ng control of the affairs of the Union. It is wel 
known that the Free States cannot, from their state of 

* See Life of John Bwfofoh by Hugh S. Garland, vol. i. p. 2 94. 



27 

society, always send their best men to Congress. They are 
often compelled, from the circumstances in which Heaven 
has placed them, to labor, in their respective vocations, for 
the support of themselves and their families. They have 
no negroes to make work for them when they are away, 
none that they can sell to make up the deficiencies of their 
income while they are absent. The Slave States, on the 
contrary, can always command their best men, — best not 
from morals, not from virtues, nor yet from talents, but best 
for their purposes. The slaveholders form a class of slave- 
holding aristocratic landholders, who take up the trade of 
democracy in order to get possession of and victimize the 
leaders of the democracies of the Free States. They know 
that these leaders have generally not one spice of democracy 
in their composition, but, like themselves, have taken up 
that trade for the sake of power, and who naturally fall into 
the slaveholders' arms from likeness of object and instinctive 
sympathy. They have not, like the slaveholder, any negroes 
of their own, but are ready, as John Randolph would say, at 
any moment, to become negro to the slaveholder, provided 
they can get place or pay, or the fodder they desire. These 
men never trouble themselves what services the slavehold- 
ers will require. They are ready to vote for them in order 
to make new Slave States in the old-acquired territories ; or to 
fight for them in order to conquer new territories in which 
to extend the area of slavery ; or to assist them in breaking 
down the barrier, erected by compromise, to prevent its far- 
ther extension; and, to maintain the slaveholders' triumph, 
do not hesitate to dip their hands in the blood of their 
brethren of the Free States. 

The slaveholders' mode of operation in extending their 
power is well worthy analysis. Having no necessity nor 
inclination to labor, those of them who have, from their 
great wealth, more idle time than the generality, devote them- 
selves to politics ; which, in their vocabulary, means how 



28 



to govern their slaves and how to control the Free States. 
Those being kept in subjection through fear of the arm of 
the Union, the main study of the slaveholder is how to keep 
this arm in subjection to them. This is the topic of discus- 
sion at their homes, in their court-houses, their caucuses, 
and in their senate-chambers. In their plantations, they 
live in a species of lordly solitude. Though thus, mostly, 
they think and reason and write apart, yet, from the identity 
of their interests and fears, their thoughts and reasonings 
result in the same line of policy, which, at their general 
meetings, they agree upon and settle. Though widely sepa- 
rate, the chiefs sit as spiders in the centre of their respec- 
tive webs, throwing out filaments to every State in the 
Union, in every one of which the threads of some of them 
find points of attachment and reciprocation, in custom- 
houses, post-offices, those of contracting printers, and many 
others, from each of which ready sympathetic responses 
are returned, as sure and as quick as by the wires of the 
telegraph. These responses are collected at Washington, 
in which the character and qualification of each member of 
Congress is as well known as at his own home. 

How to secure and manage those members of Congress 
who are likely to take a lead in debate, or exert any influ- 
ence in either branch, never fails to be a special study of the 
slaveholders, which is greatly facilitated by the location of 
Congress in the city of Washington. Such men from the 
Free States soon become objects of attention of men well 
versed in the arts of governing slaves, and of winning white 
men to their purposes ; and while the new member is, per- 
haps, wondering what makes him such a special object of 
kindness, and is thinking only how to reciprocate, they are 
examining him as an article in the market, — whether he can 
be bought at all ; whether he is worth buying ; whether, if 
bought, he has sufficient influence at home to carry his whole 
district with him. These questions settled to the satisfaction 



29 



of the slaveholders, and the certainty established that there 
will be no flinching, however hard the service they may exact, 
the price at which he can be had being ascertained, will in 
due time be paid, whether it be by a place in the customs, or 
in the post-office, or in the cabinet, or an embassy in Europe 
or in China, and mayhap, if he stand trial in the hardest 
service, by even the President's chair. 

Let the people look into the history of the Union ever since 
the days of Andrew Jackson, and they can trace the services 
to the slaveholders, by which men from the Free States 
have attained their offices, and see the humbleness of the 
servility with which they have executed all the orders of 
the slaveholders. Such research into history will show the 
remarkable tact with which they seek and select among the 
leaders of the democracies of the great States, always 
securing for their service the most corrupt and the least 
scrupulous ; and what atrocious services they have performed 
for their masters, history also tells. 

I recur to these facts, and to history in support of them, 
not because there is any thing new in them, they having 
been at every period subjects of common and general obser- 
vation, but by way of warning to the Free States, from the 
voice of history, of what they may always expect, so long 
as they permit slaveholders to manage the affairs of the 
Union ; and to urge upon them the duty, if they mean to be 
either safe or free, to unite as one man, and to take the 
affairs of the Union into their own hands, and allow slave- 
holders no other proportion of influence or power than they 
were invested with by the Constitution of the United States, 
when it came from the hands of George Washington. 

I have thus endeavored to illustrate the arts and opera- 
tions by which slaveholders have acquired and held, with 
but few exceptions, the control of this Union for more than 
fifty years. In every stage of their successful power, they 
have had the aid of men who neither themselves nor their 
constituents were slaveholders. 



30 

The history of our Union is little else than a record of 
the triumphs of slavery, through the instrumentality of the 
ambition, cupidity, and baseness of men from the Free 
States. They aided the slaveholders in the calumnies and 
falsehoods by which Washington and his friends were first 
thrust out of power. When Jefferson, contrary to his 
avowed convictions, consented to make the Constitution of 
the United States a dead letter, for the purpose of opening 
an indefinitely wide field for the extension of the slave 
power, men from the Free States seconded his plans, and 
assisted in their execution. Without one trace of demo- 
cracy in their hearts, more than Louis Napoleon has in his, 
men from the Free States took up democracy as a trade, 
thus obtained influence in the Free States, connected them- 
selves with every administration which would accept their 
services, content even " to be sutlers to the camp since 
profits would accrue." Through the influence of such men, 
who have been successively little else than traitors to the 
great interest of the Free States, to liberty, humanity, and 
the progress of civilization, the slaveholder has taken posses- 
sion of every arm of the Union, even of the fountains of 
justice itself. 

The fact, therefore, is not extraordinary, that a taint of 
slave influence can be seen and shown in the morals, litera- 
ture, and religion of the Free States, — in their halls of 
justice and halls of liberty. If life, health, and mind be 
preserved to me, what is here but a suggestion shall be made 
manifest in detail. 

The Free States have been so long terrified or fascinated 
by the serpent Slavery, that escape from its folds seemed 
hopeless, until a kind Providence, watching over the desti- 
nies of this nation, has at length permitted it to exhibit 
itself in its true character, — violent, lawless, unprincipled, 
insolent, and overbearing ; prostrating liberty in the senate- 
chamber at Washington, its jaws red with the blood of free 
citizens at Kansas. 



31 



More than fifty years' attentive observation of the opera- 
tions of the slave power in this Union compels me to 
declare, that the provision of the Constitution of the United 
States which gave to them the weight of their slaves in the 
balance of power has been the great misfortune of this 
Union, and will be its destruction unless the Free States 
rally to its rescue, and take possession of the government. 
A longer continuance of it in the hands of slaveholders 
seems practically impossible. 

I know, that, on this subject, the Free States are always 
ominously told, "that, if the Slave States cannot continue 
to govern the Union, they will go out of it" It is a question 
of some curiosity, where, in such case, these emigrating gen- 
tlemen will go, and what they will do with that living, 
slippery luggage they must carry with them. 

In 1820, when the Missouri-Compromise question was 
in debate, John Calhoun said to John Quincy Adams, 
"that he did not believe that the question then pending in 
Congress would produce a dissolution of the Union ; but, if 
it should, the South would be, from necessity, compelled to 
form an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Great Britain." 
Mr. Adams asked " if that would not be returning to the 
Colonial state." Calhoun said, " Yes, pretty much ; but 
it would be forced upon them." Mr. Adams inquired 
" whether he thought, if, by the effect of this alliance, offen- 
sive and defensive, the population of the North should be 
cut off from its natural outlet upon the ocean, it would fall 
back upon its rocks, bound hand and foot, to starve, or 
whether it would not retain its powers of locomotion to 
move southward by land." Mr. Calhoun replied, " Then it 
would be necessary for the South to make their communities 
all military" Thus this glorious plan of " going out of the 
Union" will result, according to Mr. Calhoun's opinion, 
first in a return to a state of Colonial subjection to Great 
Britain ; and, second, to a hopeful independence under the 



32 



military prowess of three hundred thousand whites to keep in 
subjection three million of slaves. 

At the coming election, I cannot doubt that the Free 
States, in which the greatest proportion of practical wisdom, 
active talent, and efficient virtue exists, will take possession 
of this 5 government; restore to the Constitution the propor- 
tions of power established by Washington; re-instate in 
full force, that barrier against the extension of slavery, called 
"the Missouri Compromise;' 1 make Kansas a Free State; 
and put an end for ever to the addition of any more Slave 
States to this Union, - duties to be fulfilled at every hazard, 
even of the dissolution of the Union itself. If this Union is 
destined to break to pieces, it cannot fall in a more glorious 
struggle than in the endeavor to limit the farther extension 
of shivery, — that disgrace of our nation, and curse of our 



race. 



From the depths of the human heart, Nature, abjuring as 
she does all right of one man to have property in another, 
calls on the people of the Free States to be faithful to 
these duties. The spirit of Liberty, to whom Washington 
intrusted the preservation of this Union, calls on them to 
relieve her from the shame of being longer an instrument 
to propagate slavery, and a pander for oppression. Unborn 
millions, destined hereafter to fill the earth from the Missis- 
sippi to the Pacific, cry to them, from the depths of all 
future ages, to be faithful to their great trust; exclaiming, 
« On your faithfulness it depends, whether we shall become 
the depraved subjects or ministers of a slave despotism; 
ivhether fraud, violence, and an infamous traffic, shall be our 
destiny, or the enjoyment of the pure light of liberty, morality, 
and religion." 
























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